


Insert Slot A Into Somewhere Less Innuendo-Filled

by spacenaiads



Series: Remus and Sirius and the trip to Ikea [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, Fluff, IKEA, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:12:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenaiads/pseuds/spacenaiads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus and Sirius (who didn't die during the war against Voldemort, what are you talking about, they live in Remus's cottage in Wales in a perpetual state of middle-aged bliss, what book were <i>you</i> reading??) go to Ikea</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insert Slot A Into Somewhere Less Innuendo-Filled

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my lovely girlfriend [Morgan](http://sapphicmodernity.tumblr.com) as a Christmas present. Yes, I am aware that it is now January, you don't need to remind me.

“Sirius! This is getting out of hand!” Remus yelled down from the study— _his_ study—and looked on in horror as his papers were drenched in a concealed cup of cold tea he’d managed to knock over. A concealed cup of cold tea that should _never_ have been allowed to be left on his desk in the first place.

“What?” came the faint reply from somewhere down the stairs and around the corner.

“I said that this thing you’ve got going where you do your paperwork on my desk and leave it all messy with crumbs everywhere and old cups of tea cunningly hidden so that I might knock them over is simply getting out of hand,” Remus tried again at a more normal volume, coming down the stairs and into the kitchen with the offending article. “Who even knows how long this has been up there? Actually, let’s not go down that road.”

He put the cup in the sink and saw Sirius, leaning against the counter with his coffee next to him, munching merrily on what looked and smelt like a burnt piece of toast with jam and reading the paper.

“Huh?” Sirius wasn’t at his best in the mornings.

“Here, come and help me with this,” Remus said, rootling around in a cupboard and then another, trying to decide where in Merlin’s name Sirius might think the paper towels should go. It didn’t seem to matter how many times Remus explained that the potatoes went on the shelf next to the onions and below the spices, and the coffee plunger in the second draw down from the cutlery; he still found the lemon juicer nestled among the plates and the vanilla essence next to the carrots. Eventually he found them stuffed right to the very back of the top shelf of the pantry.

“Urgh!”

“I know.”

Sirius’s tried to mop up his shirt before it stained, and only succeeded in spreading the dampness around. Sirius’s ministrations had done nothing for the desk; he thought he could see one of Remus’s prized books that had been swamped in the commotion, and Sirius was really hoping he wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t like they were first editions or particularly valuable or anything. Remus’s books were always terrible, delicate things that he’d bought secondhand in his teenage years and had been lugging about from apartment to apartment ever since, and yet he refused point-blank to part with any of them. He went a funny colour if anyone got too close to them.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t keep using my desk,” Remus said, but without any malice (well not _much_ , anyway). He flicked his wand at the widening shirt stain and it instantly disappeared.

“Oh shut it, Moony.”

“Just because _some_ people never got the hang of cleaning charms.”

“Muggle cleaning works better!”

“That it does, that it does. Though that doesn’t change the fact that you never learnt cleaning magic. Anyway, come on, we’ve got to move these papers before we do anything else—if we just try vanishing the tea it might harm the ink.”

“And that would be just terrible.”

“It would,” Remus said amicably, shifting a sopping pile of messy figures onto another. “How about we focus on what kind of desk to get you.”

As a change of subject, it was impressive.

“I don’t need one of them, I’m not boring and middle-aged! I can just use yours on the _rare occasions_ I need one!”

“No you can’t, because you are henceforth banned,” Remus said, flicking Sirius with a sopping dishtowel for emphasis. He decided to diplomatically let ‘boring and middle-aged’ slide. “You need a desk, Sirius. You need a work surface. What about when you mess about with Muggle technology? You could use it for that.”

“You won’t let me. You only let me do it on the kitchen table.”

“Yes, because you might electrocute yourself and I want to be on hand when that happens. But we could put it in the corner of the living room and you could fiddle about with wires to your heart’s content.”

Sirius was trying to pretend that it wasn’t an attractive idea, but it was all on principle. He knew when he was beaten.

“We’re going to Ikea,” Remus said, as if he was announcing something fun.

“May Merlin have mercy on our souls,” Sirius mumbled under his breath.

A half-hour and a lengthy search for Remus’s knobbly green cardigan later, the Toyota crunched reluctantly into life after several false starts.

“Still don’t see why we couldn’t take the bike.”

“How on Earth would we get back afterwards with a heavy package on the bike?”

“We could shrink it or make it light as a feather or—“

“No spells in Muggle areas. I’m not risking it,” said Remus, manoeuvring the car out of the cottage garage and onto the gravel road. “Okay, get the map out. I’ll be okay for the first twenty minutes, then I need you to direct me to the motorway.”

“I’m putting in Ziggy Stardust,” Sirius said, his hand emerging from the glove box with both the map and a small rectangular black box.

“You are _not_ —get that tape away from the player, we’re not listening to Bowie—oh my god, _stop_ —“ The car lurched alarmingly, almost crashing into a bush.

“All right,” said Sirius, far too cheerfully. “Guess it’s time for a little NSYNC instead. We’re not listening to that dreary Belle & Sebastian stuff, I’m not having it.”

“Your taste in music is _awful_ ,” said Remus, as the familiar strains of _Bye Bye Bye_ wafted through the window into the countryside.

After much further bickering they finally pulled into the Ikea parking lot. Remus parked the car. Sirius braced himself.

It was as horrifying as he’d expected. Gleaming, pristine furniture glared at him from every direction. He felt like he should shield his eyes from it. It went onwards and outwards, so far that the back wall wasn’t in sight. It probably stretched across several time zones.

“Right,” Remus said brightly, apparently undaunted. _A braver man than I_ , Sirius thought to himself. _Or possibly just madder_ , he amended.

“Remember not to step off the path,” Sirius whispered, slipping his hand into Remus’s as they set off on a path with a gentle curve to their right.

“Why are we whispering?” Remus whispered back.

“Because the furniture is evil, as you very well know. Anyway, I don’t want to be stuck here forever and ever. It would be the lamest fairytale ever told.”

“You’ve really taken that story about the time when I was a toddler and got lost in Ikea and it closed for the night and I had to be rescued by police to heart, haven’t you?”

Sirius nodded absently, his attention caught by a lamp with a motorbike as the base.

“No,” Remus tugged him away. “It wouldn’t go with the carpet.”

They moved deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. They soon lost sight of the door. Occasionally they came across other bewildered looking travellers in the MDF and faux-leather jungle.

“Oooh! Remus look, [look at this](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/80247818/)!”

“It’s a children’s tent, Sirius.”

“Correction: it’s a children’s tent that looks like Gryffindor Tower. I’m buying it for Harry’s kids.”

It didn’t remotely look like Gryffindor Tower, unless the Tower had been revamped entirely in tacky polyester at about a hundredth of the scale since Remus had been a student.

“Harry’s youngest is ten, Sirius. She’ll be at Hogwarts herself next year.”

“Exactly! That’s a whole year away!”

“No, Sirius.”

“It’s only, what... twenty quid,” Sirius said, finding the price tag. “A bargain.”

“It’s going to be a bit difficult buying it without any money.”

“What are you talking about, I’m an adult, I have money on me,” Sirius scoffed.

A quick search of his jacket pockets turned out a stick of chewing gum, an empty lighter, three knuts, a Muggle pound, and a cinema ticket for the _Life of Brian_.

“Huh. Guess I haven’t cleaned this out since before Azkaban,” Sirius said, unconcernedly dropping the cinema ticket onto the floor. “Anyway, us being a couple and all, we make joint purchases, yeah?”

“There is no way in hell that tent is coming back with us,” said Remus.

“Aw, Remus,” Sirius crooned, standing way too close in front of him and slipping an arm behind the back of his neck so he couldn’t escape. “I mean we’re practically married,” he continued, going in for a very sloppy snog as Remus tried to squirm away. At that inopportune moment a lady with two young kids in tow turned a corner and nearly walked right into them. Sirius, being completely shameless, made a highly unsubtle grab for the back pocket of Remus’s jeans in the mistaken belief of his wallet being there, which naturally looked like a highly unsubtle grab for Remus’s arse.

The lady let out a small shriek. Remus thought he saw her trying to shield the children’s eyes as she hurried past.

“I’m so sorry!” He called out desperately after her. “Did you really think I’d keep my wallet in my back pocket? I think I’m a bit craftier than that,” he goaded Sirius after she was gone.

Sirius plunged a hand into Remus’s coat.

“Stop, you lunatic!” Remus tried again to squirm away. Which is when they unbalanced and tipped over into a football-themed bed cover display. But, being a display bed as opposed to a real bed, it immediately collapsed under their combined weight.

“Fuck,” Remus said to no-one in particular.

“Aha!” Sirius cried triumphantly, brandishing Remus’s wallet in the air.

“Fuck!” Remus said to no-one in particular.

But Sirius’s triumph turned to puzzlement as he opened the wallet.

“Where’s the rest of the money?” He asked, pulling out a crumpled five pound note.

“Look, it’s not like real, _physical_ money—Merlin, I should take you out in the Muggle world more—“

“How are you going to pay for a desk with a fiver?”

“I’m explaining, listen to me—you see that card...” And so Remus explained to Sirius about the wonders of Muggle money and credit cards and eftpos machines and how most money wasn’t real money any more. Sirius listened, fascinated. But just when Remus thought he finally understood—

“So the Muggles shrunk your money and it’s in the card now?”

Remus often thought there was something inherent about magical blood that made it impossible to understand technology. Either that or Sirius was deliberately winding him up.

“No—yes. Let’s go with that, shall we?” He said, picking himself out of what was left of the ‘bed’ and offering a hand to Sirius. Mercifully, Sirius seemed to have forgotten about the tent, though he stuffed the credit card into his pocket. Remus was going to have to wrestle that back off him later. Equally amazingly, they scuttled away from the wreckage without attracting anyone’s attention.

They walked a while, and Remus eventually thought they must be coming to the end of the children’s section. The neon pink and green forest seemed to be thinning. He was sure he could see a glimmer of beige in the distance. Everything was nice and quiet. Life was looking up.

It then occurred to him that he hadn't heard Sirius in a while.

“Shit,” he said, eyes scanning the path that he’d just walked through, the sides, up ahead. Nothing. “Shit shit shit.” He tried to retrace his steps, but only succeeded in getting more lost. He was just considering giving up all pretense of dignity and yelling for help, when—

“Remus, there you are!” Sirius said, examining a [fluoro green monstrosity](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60054636/).

“What’s that?” Asked Remus.

“I think it’s like a bed canopy thing,” Sirius said, flicking it. It bobbled up and down. “Look, it’s like a leaf. It would be like going to sleep in a jungle.”

“No, it wouldn’t. It is intended for children. It is tiny. It is tacky. It is fluorescent green.”

Sirius sat down in abjection, which turned to glee when the seat he was in swung backwards with him, with a somewhat distressing creaking noise.

“Why don’t we have [these](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/90056455/) instead of armchairs?” Sirius asked, making it swing at an alarming angle. “I want twelve.”

“I’ll think about it at the end if we keep looking for the desks right now.”

Further and further into the labyrinth they went; and the further they got, the more they turned on each other.

“I told you to stick to the path!” Sirius hissed from the corner of his mouth.

“What, so it’s my fault now? You were the one running about looking at bed canopies!”

“That canopy was beautiful in its horribleness and I still vote that we should get one.”

“Never!”

Sirius tried to storm off, but Remus grabbed his arm. “Don’t you see? This isn’t us talking, it’s this place. It’s making us turn on each other. We have to stick together. We’re stronger than this.”

Sirius blinked and shook his head, as if to clear it. “You’re right,” he said, slipping his hand into Remus’s. “Which way do you want to go?”

“Let’s go west,” Remus said, pointing to their left. "I thought I saw something beige in that direction earlier.”

“That’s not west,” Sirius said. “This is west. This way,” said, pointing to their right.

“Don’t be silly, that’s east. South-east, maybe, to be more precise.”

“It’s _west_ , I’m telling you.”

Suddenly, a storeperson was in front of them.

“Hello,” she said, “can I help you with anything?”

“Yes,” said Sirius. “Which way’s west?”

“It’s this way, isn’t it?” Said Remus, pointing again.

“I haven’t a clue,” said the shopgirl. “Can I direct you anywhere? Linen? Bathrooms? Outdoors?”

Remus Lupin was a man cursed with the inability of ever asking someone who works in a shop for help. “No, we’re fine, thank you,” he said, dragging Sirius off in a direction that was probably not west. By chance it did happen to lead out of the children’s section, though. The sight of cream and taupe was like music to their eyes.

Remus made faint Remus-y approval noises as he ran his fingers up a curtain. “Look at [this](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10257844/), Sirius. Wouldn’t this colour work a lot better in the living room, especially with the sofa? The patterns would really liven it up, don’t you think?”

“Nooo,” Sirius said softly, “please Remus. Please find something interesting to look at. I’m not having those in our house. They’re so dull.”

“Hmm. Well, I mean even [these](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00232321/) would help with the colour scheme.”

“No, stop, enough of this, you know how I feel about curtains,” Sirius said, pushing Remus past the curtains and into a sea of swivel chairs.

“Ooh!” He said, sitting down on the nearest and spinning around on it.

“Oh my god,” said Remus, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. He’d _liked_ the curtains.

“I could get one of these for my desk,” Sirius said. “What about [this](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60217902/) one?”

“That is...really, truly horrific. Even for Ikea.” Remus said, scrunching his face at the blue and black design. “Anyway, you’re not getting a swivelly chair. You can use one of the table chairs we've got at home.”

“What about [this](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00068165/) one?” Sirius carried on, pretending not to have heard him.

“I don’t understand why there’s a gap between the arms and the back. No.”

“Actually, [this](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/30264216/) is the one for me,” said Sirius, bending down to sit in it and pulling the hood down after him. “Spin me around, Remus.”

It’s worth noting that Remus did.

“Come on,” Remus said, “We’re close, I can feel it.”

Remus dragged Sirius through the field of chairs and out the other side, and then, at last, were they at the desks.

After all the excitement of their adventure, choosing a desk was surprisingly easy and mundane. Sirius decided on a [black desk with a pull-outy bit](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60214183/) and marvelled at how the man behind the check-out accepted Remus’s card as payment and then _gave it back_. They even got out of Ikea alive (Remus tried to stop and look at towels, but Sirius dragged him on).They manoeuvred the cardboard box into the back of the Toyota with no incidents, minimal grumbling and only two complaints apiece about how it hurt their backs.

“Well, it shouldn't be so hard to put together, should it?” said Remus, satisfied, over the sounds of _Tearin’ Up My Heart_ as he put the car in gear.

**Author's Note:**

> If the links go down, here are the links in the order they appear in the fic, hosted at the wayback machine! (Also if/when this happens please notify me and I'll put these in the actual fic)
> 
>  
> 
> [exhibit a:](http://web.archive.org/web/20140101190655/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/80247818) tacky children's tent that doesn't actually overly resemble Gryffindor Tower, whatever Sirius says  
> [exhibit b:](http://web.archive.org/web/20131221033605/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60054636/) hideous neon green """bed canopy""" in shape of a leaf  
> [exhibit c:](http://web.archive.org/web/20150116110633/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/90056455/) highly unsturdy-looking swinging seat thing. intended for children, not fully-grown adult humans  
> [exhibit d:](http://web.archive.org/web/20140815104728/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10257844/) remus's horrific taste in curtains. I can picture them hanging in my grandmother's house.  
> [exhibit e:](http://web.archive.org/web/20140815085622/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00232321/) also curtains, a vaguely different shade of beige.  
> [exhibit f:](http://web.archive.org/web/20131020155611/http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60217902/) a true achievement in the world of tasteless furniture  
> [exhibit g:](http://web.archive.org/web/20131223233231/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00068165/) I want you to consider that someone got paid to design this. maybe multiple people. amazing.  
> [exhibit h:](http://web.archive.org/web/20150122094140/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/30264216/) I won't lie, I kind of wish I owned this. It looks like it would be fun to sit in it and pull the hood down and make other people spin you around in it.  
> [exhibit i:](http://web.archive.org/web/20131204002323/http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60214183/) boring minimalistish particleboard desk. will make an appearance in the next (and final) part in this series, in which remus and sirius try and assemble the desk they got from ikea and it all goes horribly, hilariously wrong. (probably. I haven't written it yet.)


End file.
